CAFO Permit Fees Amended by Starke County Plan Commission

Posted on September 22, 2016
Author Michael Gallenberger, WKVI

Permit fees for concentrated animal feeding operations were revisited Wednesday by the Starke County Plan Commission.

Back in July, the plan commission decided that the $250 fee per structure was too low, considering the size of many such operations, and decided to simply place CAFOs into the category of commercial and industrial buildings. However, the revised fee of 20-cents per square foot, up to a maximum of $5,000 was considered too high by many farmers. Now, plan commissioners hope they’ve found the sweet spot with a fee of $500 per CAFO structure.

That result came after a bit of discussion involving various parties. Attorney Jim Federoff appeared on behalf of the Indiana Pork Advocacy Coalition. He says that Indiana law appears to limit how much revenue may be generated from permit fees. “The fee has to be reasonable and it has to be rationally related to the purpose of the fee, which in this case is an ILP,” he said. “Based on my experience doing land use law and from what I can see applicable in Starke County, I think the last amendment with a fee up to $5,000 for CAFOs for an ILP would not be consistent with the law.”

But Plan Commission Director Terry Stephenson noted that CAFO permitting can mean a lot of work for his department if all the steps are properly followed. “If they would call for the number of inspections they’re supposed to call for, which would be eight to 10, there’s a lot of administrative fees,” he said.

Plan Commission Attorney Martin Bedrock pointed out that Starke County’s updated proposal is comparable to fees seen in other counties. “Ours is not out of line,” Bedrock said. “Ours is a flat $500 fee, which will take in all the costs of all the inspections, and there’s no additional, like in Marshall County, they charge $800 plus twenty- cents per square foot over a certain size, I guess. So $500 is not out of line with all the surrounding counties.”

To help offset some of the administrative costs of processing CAFO applications, the plan commission decided to add a $75 filing fee to the $500 permit, due to the steps required to process the applications. Plan commissioners also decided to double the re-inspection fee to $100 for all permits. It’s charged when the county is called out to conduct an inspection, but the work is deemed to be incomplete.

The Starke County Plan Commission approved the changes unanimously.

Starke County Plan Commission Delays Action on Confined Animal Feeding Ordinance Updates

Posted on July 21, 2016
Author Michael Gallenberger, WKVI

The Starke County Plan Commission will decided to gather more information before approving updates to its confined animal feeding ordinance. A public hearing was held on the proposed updates during Wednesday’s meeting.

Among the proposed changes is the addition of a “Confined Feeding Operation” category to the ordinance, as a somewhat smaller version of the “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation” already listed. Another proposed addition would require operations falling into either of those categories to receive a special exception in order to be placed within a half-mile of land zoned for non-agricultural uses.

Plan Commissioner Betty Dotlich says a pre-application form has been put together, to gather information about potential operations. “We developed a form, based on this ordinance if it’s approved, of what we would like them to turn in when they’re applying for the CAFO or CFO permit,” she says. “And then they would attach to that their route permit from the county highway garage, any written permission, if it’s required, for any variations from setbacks, and their IDEM application packet as well, so we have all the information that IDEM has.”

The existing ordinance calls for a certain distance between CAFOs or their waste management systems and non-farm houses, depending on whether or not any odor control measures are used. However, some residents in attendance questioned whether more odor restrictions could be put into place, should operators choose to use animal manure as fertilizer on their land. Several plan commissioners expressed their belief that restrictions on manure placement were beyond the commission’s scope, instead falling under the Indiana Department of Environmental Management or the State Chemist’s Office.

Plan Commission Attorney Martin Bedrock said that while it’s unlikely the state would allow Starke County to impose stricter regulations, there’s no harm in asking. “If they say no, then we’re stuck with what they’ve established as the standards,” he said. “But if they say that we can impose stricter standards, then we’ll have to deal with that.”

The plan commissioners decided to delay final approval of the ordinance, while they gather more information from the state.